


Was it worth it?

by Resa_Saso



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-16 03:58:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11820750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resa_Saso/pseuds/Resa_Saso
Summary: They meet again several times and everytime the Doctor fails to mention something important, the Master already seems to know.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

When she came home - well, not entirely home, more like something that had become a home in not calling it home – he just sat there, on one of the only spots of Gallifrey she had ever liked, that haunted her in her memories, left a bitter, beautifully nostalgic stain in her heart. He sat there, back to her and staring into the nothingness of the fields.  
She smiled. This place used to be quiet and lonely, embraced by always flowering trees and soft, sweet music in the wind.  
It still was pretty far away from most of the action, but three of four couples seemed to have noticed the spot as well, sat in the high, red grass, kissing and cuddling, talking and laughing, wind in their hair, fire in their eyes.  
She barely noticed them, her eyes were glued on the Master.  
The Doctor took a deep breath.  
She knew it was him, it was the Master that had become prime minister of Great Britain, the cruellest one yet, the one haunted by pain and drums and insanity. But even if she hadn’t known this particular regeneration of him, she would’ve recognized him by the way he was sitting there, nostalgic, thinking, dreaming.  
‘You shouldn’t have brought it back, not ever,’ he said quietly, when she came closer. He still hadn’t turned around, but he must’ve had sensed her.  
Of course, he was the Master after all, knew where she’d go before she did herself. Knew her.  
Well, she had still a surprise in stock for him, she thought with a smile and sat down next to him, looking into the same direction now.  
‘Maybe,’ she confirmed. ‘But in a way it’s easier now. Being who I am.’  
‘Was it worth it?’ the Master wanted to know bitterly. ‘All the pain, the suffering by these corrupted, senseless idiots, all the things we’ll have to go through… Just so you would feel better?’  
He seemed angry, so angry he didn’t even notice, what he had heard. But now he had turned around to her and she saw his eyes widening right after his question.  
‘You are…’  
‘Yes.’  
The Master blinked. ‘Yes, I am a woman or yes, it was worth it?’  
‘Yes, I am a woman,’ the Doctor answered with a sad smile. ‘The rest is not for me to decide.’  
The Master snorted. ‘It just to be,’ he bit back. ‘Oh, but isn’t this easy, Doctor? Giving up all the heavy responsibility back to the villains of this story? The quiet observers, guards of the universe, ready to sacrifice all of it to save their own worthless asses?’ He frowned and added: ‘I like it.’  
‘Thank you,’ she said, smirking for a bit, before she let it die. ‘But since when do you care about who’s taking care of the universe?’   
The other Time Lord just raised an eyebrow. ‘Since forever, do consider that’s the person I have to steal it from.’  
Again and again she could feel his eyes on her. While she was thinking over her answer, he was giving her some glances sideways. ‘You’re blond again,’ he finally remarked.  
The Doctor laughed. ‘I’m giving up talking about serious issues until you’ve finished commenting on my regeneration, if you don’t mind.’  
‘Typical,’ the Master remarked. ‘Always ending it when things get uncomfortable, don’t you?’  
‘And that from the man that wouldn’t let me talk for one year, just because he couldn’t stand to hear the words?’  
‘I like you blond,’ the Master muttered under his breath, completely ignoring what the Doctor just said (and perfectly confirming her point with this, thank you very much). ‘Oh, do shut up, I didn’t confirm a thing.’  
The Doctor glanced at him. ‘Get out of my head.’  
‘I’m not in your head,’ he shot back grinning. ‘You’re just easy to read, that’s it.’  
She had heard hundreds of people saying otherwise, but she wasn’t going to comment on this. It was clear, the Master knew her better than any of them. She didn’t need him to gloat over it.  
He tilted his head a bit. ‘Your eyes are green.’  
‘Are you planning on getting over me being a woman eventually?’  
The Master smirked. ‘You being a woman? Did you hear me saying anything about that? I just noticed your eyes are green again.’  
Oh.  
She looked away quickly. It was easy for him to read her and right now, the thoughts in her head belonged to only her. The last time she had been here, with him, together, sitting in some sort of piece, she had been blonde, yes, and green eyed. Theta had been… She shuddered. Was that her imagination or had the wind gotten colder?  
‘What is happening now?’  
He smirked at her distraction, telling her he still read her easily, but the Doctor decided to ignore that. The one thing the Master really didn’t need was even more smugness.  
‘I don’t know, they locked themselves up in their offices, discussing my possible future. Rassilon shouted for execution for hours, it was actually quite funny. You should’ve seen it, not much and he would’ve spitted fire.’  
‘They’re not really going to execute you, are they?’  
‘They could try,’ the Master hummed. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time someone did that, would it?’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I don’t think they will. The Council seemed to have at last regained some of their common sense.’  
She wasn’t really convinced, and stared into the fields of Gallifrey, thoughtful, quiet.  
‘Why, Doctor,’ he smirked. ‘Worrying about me?’  
‘Always,’ she answered calmly. ‘You know that.’  
His face softened a bit, not that she noticed, she was still staring at the fields in front of them. He instead stared at her, her soft, new lines, the warm, green eyes, hair that softly fluttered around her. It looked silky and soft.  
He liked her this way. He had liked the Doctor in every way, vulnerable and strong, man and boy, crazy and serious, beautiful and… no, if he was true to himself – and himself only – he had always been beautiful to him. Always been this Doctor. But this was new in a new way, this was something else. This was the Doctor actively seeking change. And everyone that knew this nostalgic, sentimental idiot of a Time Lord – Time Lady – knew, he hated change.  
So something must’ve happened.  
The Doctor turned back to him, smiled. ‘Who’s easy to read now?’ she asked and the Master couldn’t help but smile a bit, just a bit, just for once.  
‘None of us, to be fair. Except for each other.’  
‘Fair enough.’  
Silence. Only wind in their ears, dragging at their clothes and hair, pulling and pushing. That’s what always had been between them, pulling and pushing and the weird sequences of piece in between, when nobody looked, not even themselves, when it felt right, when none of their battles seemed to matter for just an hour or two.  
‘You’re not going to stay, are you?’  
The Master laughed out loud, cold and bitter. ‘Of course not. Are you?’  
It was a rhetorical question he knew the answer to as much as she did, he just wanted to let her know he felt like her. Felt strange and unwelcome, wrong and misplaced on this planet, as they always had.  
Imprisoned and smothered.  
‘Care to find out how to steal a TARDIS?’  
The Master snorted. ‘I’m sure I’ll manage.’  
Still nothing he liked to joke about, she noticed, not sure whether it was a good or a bad sign. Obviously, he didn’t want her help. Obviously he didn’t even want to talk about it. Obviously, she should just leave.  
She got up, waited for a second, unsure how to say goodbye.  
‘You still didn’t answer my question.’  
He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes still fixed on the view in front of him and suddenly she wondered, if he tried to make it easier for her.  
‘Was it worth it, Doctor?’  
She thought about the Master, converting Bill into a Cyberman, getting stuck with his newly stolen TARDIS.  
She thought about Missy, lying on the forest ground, cold and pale.  
She thought about how empty she felt when she finally died. How all she could see in front of her was Missy’s face, how she decided to honour her the only way she could – Holding on to life, like the Master used to, living in her memory, changing the only way she could accept anymore, changing without her friend, by keeping her friend into her hearts.  
She thought about how little this man in front of her cared. How he didn’t know yet what he’d do, not only to her but himself. She thought about warning him, telling him not to, telling him to take precautions. But she knew, there just was no point.  
And then she thought about Gallifrey.  
‘I’m not feeling better,’ she finally said. ‘I’m not feeling better, no matter what I’m doing. You won’t let me. So I guess it wasn’t worth it, was it?’  
She turned around and left, but while she was heading back to her TARDIS, she heard him call something behind her.   
‘You shouldn’t have brought it back, then.’  
She stopped in front of her door, leaned her forehead against it, but didn’t turn around.  
‘I always felt like it blocked the view at the stars, don’t you think?’  
   
  



	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor never really considered being tired. Didn’t particularly cross her mind, to be honest. Of course, now and then she thought about sleeping, but it used to be easier. She used to be exhausted from her battles, used to be light-hearted, because sometimes, on good days, she saved more than she killed. When she needed sleep, which wasn’t very often, there had always been nights she could get it.  
But tonight her hearts were heavy and her face felt sticky and stiff, even though her eyes were dry and no relieving tear would find its way out. It was the kind of night she usually drained away with more to do, more adventures, more rescuing. But today she was too exhausted, lay in her bed lifeless, shuddering from the weight of the universe she started carrying around with herself.  
What did her people do, when they were worn down by all of this?  
Hah, trick question, they had no conscience whatsoever.   
What did humans do in these kind of nights?  
Pray to God?  
Well, she couldn’t do that, could she? There was no God to hear her, no miracle to happen, because usually she was the one who let it rain in deserts. Now she was stuck in one, no way out, no miracle in line. Just her and the TARDIS, good old TARDIS. Well, not that it felt less lonely, this particular night.  
‘Someone real would be nice,’ she whispered into the night, noticing how broken and raspy her voice sounded. ‘Someone to cuddle. Or maybe just a stuffed animal. Can you do that? Creating stuffed animals?’  
She was lonely.   
No, she was alone.  
No, she just lost a whole city, she should’ve had saved.  
Wasn’t it better if she was alone? Wasn’t that what she decided to be a hundred times? Didn’t she bring danger to everyone around her? Of course, yes, on good days she saved planets and worlds, but at what price? Nightmares and pictures, whenever she closed her eyes, her friends dying, dead, on the ground, alone, scared, shouting her name and…  
Oh, who was she kidding?  
Missy’s face, empty, lifeless, hard. A face that could show dozens of emotions, could be used as a theatre mask, could make whole civilizations wonder what she was thinking right now, so broken, gone and far away. A face that changed so much. It was a face she had loved to see, then hated to see, been relieved to see, been happy to see, been scared to see, until, one stormy night alone in the universe, it finally had become a face she wanted to see again more than any other face.  
Gone now, wasn’t it? Gone for good. Her final, last victory over her, once again, but this time real.  
Oh, it hurt.  
It didn’t hurt enough to not notice someone just opened her door, but enough to not care about it at all. She just lay there, waiting. Was it an enemy, coming to kill her? A survivor of the burning city, who came to blame her? A friend, coming to save her? She wasn’t sure which one would be worse.  
Funnily enough, as life went with her around, it was neither.  
‘Well, doesn’t that look cosy?’  
She flinched at the voice and got up on her elbows, staring up tiredly at the face in front of her.  
‘Are you my stuffed animal?’ she asked.  
The Master just stood there, raising one eyebrow. His hands were crossed behind his back neatly and a smirk played around his lips.  
Typical, she thought. But she couldn’t help but feel better. His voice was a familiar sound and his expression something all of his faces had carried through the centuries.  
‘Your stuffed animal?’ he finally asked and she shrugged.  
‘I was thinking you might be an enemy, which you’re not.’   
Oh, she didn’t know his eyebrows could raise that high   
‘And I was thinking, you could also be a friend, which you aren’t either.’   
They sunk down a bit.  
‘So I figured you must be the stuffed animal I asked for.’  
And he smiled.  
A bit predictable, but really, it had been predictable that he would be predictable.  
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he finally replied quietly.   
The Doctor noticed his eyes, wandering over her face, seemingly looking for something and decided to make it a bit easier for him. She sat up completely and ran her hand through her heavy face. Her eyes burned, but still no tears would do her the favour to show up.  
‘I’ve watched a city burn today.’  
Don’t ask, she thought. Don’t make it one of these days and ask me how it felt. You can see how it felt.  
He could.  
‘Felt like Gallifrey, didn’t it?’  
He took her legs, dropped down on the bed and let them sink down in his lap again, stroking them almost tenderly, not letting go.  
She felt something in her throat. Felt like losing you all over again, she thought. Felt like losing and finding, losing and finding, losing and finding, just to lose you for good.  
But she couldn’t bring it over herself to say it out loud, not while looking into these eyes and seeing some kindness inside of them, for the first time.  
‘Don’t you mind?’ she suddenly asked, receiving a confused look.  
‘A burning city? Not much. Sorry, you are aware of who is sitting in front of you, yeah? Should I turn on some lights?’  
She couldn’t help but smile a little and to her surprise The Master reciprocated.   
‘Me, being a woman?’  
‘Oh, you’re a woman? Sorry, didn’t notice.’  
‘Are you serious?’  
‘Are you seriously asking me that?’  
The Doctor stopped and shook her head, laughing.  
‘I mean, do you seriously don’t mind?’  
The Master sighed. ‘Why do you think it matters? You look as arrogant as before, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’  
‘Pot meet kettle,’ she muttered.  
The Master smirked his most arrogant smirk.  
‘So what exactly is the problem?’  
‘The problem is,’ she retorted, suddenly angry. ‘That I met your future version and he was mocking women all day long and I decided, hey, be a stubborn idiot, be a woman, just to spite him and now I’m stuck with you idiot and I need you and I think you might hate me even more and I thought I would finally hate you this time, but turns out I can’t and I…-‘  
A finger on her lips stopped her outburst. That wasn’t hers, she was quite sure, but she still checked with a look down on her hands. Nope, both still in place.  
She looked up into the Master’s eyes. Amused kindness, above it all. And for the first time in a long time she wondered, if he was lonely.  
‘Did it ever occur to you,’ the Master asked with serious tone. ‘That I simply like mocking you? I’m a Time Lord, you know as good as I do that there’s no point in being sexist. I could end up as a woman next regeneration, where would that leave me?’  
The Doctor fought really hard not to flinch at these words. It wasn’t easy, but the finger on her lips and the eyes holding hers with hypnotizing strength actually helped. (Well, not hypnotizing in the literal sense, thank you very much, in all the centuries they spent fighting each other, he never tried that with her even once.)  
Did he know his fingers were soft?  
Fingers that had ended worlds, lives, in the end even his own…  
‘I wasn’t a woman then,’ she let him know instead and he shrugged.  
‘I bet you were still terribly outraged. So there’s that.’  
She didn’t look convinced and he sighed. ‘You’re still the Doctor. The same old idiot who checks if their fingers are still in place while being able to cross my plans with the blink of an eye. - Don’t ever mention that tomorrow, I’ll deny I ever said it. – And you still have that stupid smile, btw.’ He added that, because the Doctor had started to smile, bright and contagious, in that exasperating Doctor-way.  
‘Stupid smile?’ she asked indignantly, which made the Master chuckle a bit.  
‘Yeah, the one that looks so happy and cute, it makes me want to punch your face.’  
He was trying to cover up his compliment, but she knew him well enough to know that tactic and he knew her well enough to know she did. And so they sat there, staring into each other’s eyes, smiling their stupid smiles in silence.  
‘What are you even doing here?’ she finally asked and the Master raised an eyebrow.  
‘I’m the ordered stuffed animal,’ he pointed out in a tone that suggested this was the most obvious thing in the universe.  
‘But really…,’ the Doctor started just before the Master started to laugh out loud.  
‘Didn’t you know I’m a real life Teddy Bear?’ he asked with faked innocence in his voice.  
The Doctor laughed.  
‘No, I didn’t. I’m pretty sure, everyone who did had to die a very painful death.’  
‘Wouldn’t that be a paradox though?’ the Master wanted to know, smirking. ‘A teddy bear killing people, who find out he’s a teddy bear?’  
The Doctor grinned. ‘Seems like we have to settle for you not being a teddy bear then.’  
A huge, fake pout was her answer and for a second she couldn’t stop herself. She clung both arms around him, drew out an ‘Awwww!’ and hugged him tight. The second he stiffened in her arms, her ability to think returned and she quickly let go.  
They sat there awkwardly, the silence that had been comfortable before now seemed heavy and weird. She didn’t dare to look at him, bit her lips and looked down on the sheets instead.   
She couldn’t see his eyes rolling, but she felt his arms around her, when he laid them both down in the bed and drew her in.  
She looked up questioningly, her green eyes wide, but he just shushed her and put his chin on her head, buried his nose inside her hair.  
So she relaxed next to him, listening to his heartsbeat, alive, beating, comforting her.  
‘You said you’d need me,’ he finally spoke into the silence, just when she thought he was already asleep.  
 ‘… Yeah,’ she replied. ‘I think I might.’  
‘Okay.’  
Silence. Nothing but their breathing, his arms around her, warm, safe, familiar. Oh Rassilon, so familiar. When was the last time he had hold her like this? How could it be, they hadn’t done this for centuries and it still felt like home?  
‘I take it back,’ the Master muttered into the darkness of the bedroom and the Doctor smirked, knowing what he would say before he finally did.   
‘I hate you’re a woman. I’m fairly sure I would’ve said no to your tenth reincarnation easily enough.’  
Don’t worry about that, she thought. You’ll get your revenge. You’ll get the victory you wanted all along.  
‘Give me just one night,’ she asked instead.  
And while he fell asleep and she listened to his heartsbeat, trying desperately not to, she thought about the last time she's met him, about him asking her if it was worth it, bringing Gallifrey back, all their corruption and crime.  
And she realized, she could never ask him.   
Never ask him if it had been worth killing himself for good, just to see her lose.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write fluff. I think I'm not good at fluff.

Please don’t leave.  
‘So, what kind of a plan is it now?’  
Please don’t leave.  
‘Universe or just a planet?’  
Please don’t leave.  
The Master smiled. ‘Why don’t you find out for yourself?’  
Please don’t leave.  
The Doctor huffed. ‘So I’m involved in this one, am I?’  
‘My dear Doctor,’ he said while stepping closer to her. ‘You’re involved in all of my plans, haven’t you figured that out yet?’  
Hell, she hadn’t been Dear Doctored for a very long time. It made her hearts skip a beat. Funny, how far habits went.  
Please don’t leave.  
‘Maybe I have. Maybe I chose to ignore it, just as you choose to ignore that I really don’t want to stop all your schemes all the time.’  
The Master laughed. It was an honest, little laugh, not the maniac one he had worn as Harold Saxon. She quite liked the sound of it, but maybe it wasn’t a good idea. Liking the sound of anything the Master did or said. It was like falling in love with a rainbow. He was there, in those rare times when rain and sun crushed together and then faded, vanished, left.  
Oh God, please don’t leave.  
‘But if you didn’t stop my schemes, who would, Doctor?’ the Master wanted to know, serious.  
She sighed.  
‘That wasn’t entirely what I wanted to say and you know it wasn’t.’  
The other Time Lord simply grinned.  
‘Well, yes, but who would we be without my plans?’  
Rain and sun, the Doctor thought. Crushing together and maybe, just maybe, creating something beautiful, something everyone on Earth could see, whenever they looked up at the sky, something that gave hope and beauty to the world.  
He frowned at her.  
‘You’re really thinking about this, aren’t you?’  
A sheepish smile spread on her face. ‘Why, yes, a bit. Don’t you?’  
Her only answer was an amused shake of his head, while he grabbed his coat. Her stomach cramped.  
Please don’t leave.  
‘I mean,’ she said, ‘You obviously don’t see how beautiful you could be, because you’re so busy to put on that mask and go out there and destroy it, destroy it all, but it’s there, you know? It’s there and I know you, I know you so long and well, and I can see it, through it all.’  
She drew in a deep breath and the Master looked at her, startled, then started moving towards the door of her bedroom.  
‘Don’t you ever learn, Doctor?’ he asked with deadly quiet voice. ‘You thought you knew me before, remember where it led you?’  
You left me.  
The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes, I remember. And I remember where it led you. When nobody believed you, not even me, because I thought I knew better.’  
There was silence between them now, heavy silence that seemed to make it harder to breathe.  
He just stood there, his hand already on the door knob, ready to leave, staring at her, and she stood there, right in front of him, staring back.  
She had broken an unspoken rule, she had talked about days, long, long back, so long back, he had worn his name new and she hadn’t been true to the promise yet that came along with hers. They had been kids, still. She had run away from a kid that needed his closest, only friend, because, oh, he had scared her.  
He scared her still. Not his cruelness, not the things he could do. What really scared her was, how deep that funny, brave, smart kid had fallen, how dark his mind had grown.  
Oh, she’d never not regret the day she hadn’t listen to him, never not regret how she had taken his drums for insanity, his deeds for something he wasn’t responsible of.  
She wasn’t responsible of.  
‘Please don’t leave,’ she finally said, broke the silence, because she couldn’t stand it anymore. Pleadingly, she noticed. Just like she did before, just like she asked him to regenerate, all these years ago.  
He opened the door and left.  
Just like all these years ago.

  
She didn’t break down and cry this time, though. He wasn’t dead, well, he was, but not yet, he was just being a rainbow, fading, fading because he couldn’t stay. He could never stay.  
Wasn’t it funny, how people kept on saying that about her?  
With a sad smile, she began to change her clothes as well and stepped into her control room. She wasn’t entirely _expecting_ him to be there, but it seemed, some rather small, unnoticed and now dying part of her had hoped it.  
Well, he wasn’t there and she should be relieved, honestly, because that meant he hadn’t done dark things to her TARDIS to involve _her_ in some of his plans.  
She had quite enough of that, thank you very much.  
The Doctor decided to fight her beginning headache with tea, because really, tea could solve every problem, couldn’t it? But her kitchen felt too bright and empty, her TARDIS was quiet, parking and still sleeping and her bare feet felt cold on the cool floor.  
The Doctor’s hands trembled, when she picked up the cup and with an agonized scream she threw it against the next wall, where it shattered into dozens of tiny pieces.  
Why did he have to leave? Why couldn’t she tell him? Screw timelines, screw doing the right thing, screw the whole spoiler crap, she just wanted to tell him that their time was running out. They couldn’t go on like this, they simply couldn’t.  
Missy’s face seemed to mirror in every single shard, seemed to laugh at her, mock her, but when she looked closely enough, there were tears in her eyes.  
‘I wanted to change you,’ she told the broken cup. ‘I still do. But truth is, all of this would’ve never happened, had I just taken you for who you are, had it? You’d still be here. Alive.’  
The pieces didn’t answer. Well, obviously not. She was lost, but not insane. Well, a bit insane, but not more than usual, and she really couldn’t remember a time she expected her cup to answer. A cupboard, sometimes, but cups, no, not yet.  
She was never too old to believe in miracles, though.  
With a sigh she sat down on her table and poured some tea into another cup.  
She was looking darkly into it, when she heard the crunching.  
Instantly, the Doctor’s head shot up and she turned around.  
The Master grinned bitterly.  
‘Literally walking on shards here,’ he pointed out but she didn’t look down to see his shoes standing on the broken pieces.  
‘I thought you’d left,’ the Doctor replied confused.  
The Master shrugged. ‘I did.’  
‘So…?’ she asked and he rolled his eyes.  
‘So,’ he retorted and got louder while talking. ‘I can hear your bloody thoughts, you big idiot. It’s like you’re standing in front of me with a sign, telling me not to read. You’re basically _screaming_ them at me!’  
‘I’m not… I wasn’t… you’re in my head?’ she gave back, perplexed.  
Again, he rolled his eyes.  
‘Damn, you think you know me but you don’t know anything at all, don’t you? We spent the night together, we cuddled, what did you expect? You know it’s _us_ , yes?’  
Silence spread. The Doctor uncomfortably played with the cup of tea on her table, not looking at him.  
‘I wasn’t aware there was an “us” ‘, she finally admitted.  
The Master groaned. ‘The bond settled back in the second I lay down with you.’  
‘Oh.’  
He threw his hands up in the air.  
‘So I end up dead, yeah?’  
‘You’re not supposed to know that.’  
‘Tough.’  
Silence again and it was really starting to wear her down. This time, however, the Master was the one to break it.  
‘You shouldn’t have let me leave.’  
She shouldn’t have… What? Did he know what he was talking about, the bloody idiot!? Her eyes widened in rage when she spoke again.  
‘Excuse me?’ she spit. ‘I told you not to leave. You could hear my thoughts, you heard me asking you to stay hundred bloody times! What more was I supposed to…’  
He stepped closer and simply kissed her. Pressed his lips on hers ever so softly, she wouldn’t have even noticed, but her hearts sped up their pace and her hands trembled again when she raised them to wind them around his neck and her eye lids fluttered closed. He deepened their kiss and she returned it hungrily, clung onto him, didn’t want to let go, never let go her personal little rainbow of hope.  
And she could feel his mind open up. The connection he had blocked her out from – because he was so bloody talented in using his mind and she was so stupidly naïve to never really train her own abilities – returned, safely in place and she knew what he had meant the second it returned.  
Us, she thought. There really is an ‘Us’.  
It felt like before, it was as strong as before, it was strangely comforting.  
‘That’s what you should’ve done,’ he finally smirked, his face still so very close to hers.  
Yes, she thought, but how long can we keep this up?  
And to her surprise – he was full of them lately, wasn’t he? – the Master drew her into his arms, holding her firmly.  
‘Nothing can kill a rainbow,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘It always comes back.’


End file.
